The glut of compilations seems to have settled down a little
this year, which is a relief, and this is a value-packed second volume –
nearly two and half hours of good music on a double CD at a budget price -
with plenty to titillate.

So what made the Mercer brain bounce with joy? I was greatly
taken by the saucy melodrama from The Unholy Guests and Sleeping Children
who I have recommended before and do so unreservedly again. All but idiots
will love the quality flickering from a willowy Frank The Baptist, and the
downsized artistic offering from Leuisr::Hive. I liked the raw whooshing old
school power and crunching delivery of Cauda Pavonis, and the choral gloom
of Crucifix Nocturnal Christians which gallops beautifully. The big guitar-led
drama from Funhouse and wiggling scampering rawk loveliness from The Way Of
All Flesh is excellent, as is the fidgety guitar-tickled rock running wild
that is Bella Morte. And, surprisingly for me, the Metal gawf with a happy
chorus and wobbly vocals that is Diemonsterdie struck me as having a feel
of real potential about it. If they tighten up they could do real damage.

I also thought there was genuinely light vocal beauty in Zadera
whose singer also has hair like a bird in flight and Quidam are a similarly
demure and light fingered, with a vinegary aftertaste. Their singer seems
to have escaped from somewhere. After those immediate highlights, there’s
also no denying the cantankerous pulsing pop of The Last Days Of Jesus and
The Phantom Limbs and with the rest it was a case of sifting through the flotsam.
Tchiki Boum have the best name and some fleet of foot dank indie with flowery
vocals, as do The Prids and The Eden House. These three leave good lyrical
puncture wounds.

The grim dementia of Jacquy Bitch, who warbles weirdly with
a whirling mania, is okay, and waltzing with Katzenjammer Kabarett is enjoyable.
There are nicely dour performance from an alien sounding The Vanishing, bass-strangulation
of Voodoo Church, and the guitar-tangled Gotterdammerung. The unexpected return
from a lowkey Skeletals seems underfed, midrange efforts from House Of Usher,
and Voices Of Masada are okay, the asthmatic Alan Woxx was weird, and Dr Arthur
Krause take an old Sisters/Neph-type formula and make it a touch brighter.

Besides that you have all but incomprehensible low budget
horror from Stigmata Martyyr and Eat Your Make Up, the funny scrabblings of
Radio Scarlet, bleepy and poppy Goth from Plastikstrom, Cold and Adoration
and twittering mental arty noise from Graphik Magazin.